It’s Not Just You

A Family article with View Comments posted 2 October 2008.
Tags: amish, children, media, television

My child hasn’t even been born yet, but I’m already thinking (planning, obsessing, et cetera, ad nauseum) about what it will be like to raise kids. Crazy thoughts! One thing is certain: I’m going to try really hard not to be one of those parents who has to protect their kid from everything, including their own shadow.

That’s why this article, “Is It Just Me? Let’s Stop Scaring Our Kids” hits home so much. The author asks

How did this happen? How did it become too scary to let kids be kids?

And the answer:

“TV,” says Trevor Butterworth, an editor at the media watchdog group stats.org. “Cable TV exists to scare the pants off you.” That’s how it gets you to stay tuned. And what is scarier than a kidnapped kid-no matter how far away?

A lot of people think that Jennifer and I don’t own a television for some religious reason. Some have even asked if we’re Amish! (I mention at this point that computers outnumber people in my household two-to-one.) They can’t imagine choosing not to expose themselves to a lot of television as a choice that a modern, rational, enlightened person would make in our society – so it must be an irrational option imposed from some religious authority.

But that’s not it at all. We don’t choose not to own a television because we’re particularly pious. We choose not to import the world of symbols and ideas that television conveys because many of them are pretty unenlightened, irrational, and unhelpful. I don’t see it as something that makes us better than others (though it does, for good or ill, set us apart as different) but as a choice we’ve made which has had many more positive impacts than negative.

I don’t think that getting rid of television is sufficient to keep a parent from becoming the kind of person who is afraid to let their 12-year-old daughter walk one block to a friend’s house. But it certainly can’t hurt.